Skin cancer pill 'doubles survival' rate
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A TWICE daily pill has been found to almost double the length of time that patients with advanced skin cancer can survive.
A trial in 132 people with metastatic melanoma, found that on average they lived for almost 16 months when put on the drug, called vemurafenib.
By comparison, those with skin cancer that has already spread to other organs who are put on standard treatments tend to live for between six and 10 months after diagnosis, according to the researchers, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
Dr Antoni Ribas, professor of haematology and oncology at the University of California, Los Angeles, said: "We knew this drug would make the melanomas shrink in a large proportion of patients and that it worked better than chemotherapy. We did not know that patients taking Zelboraf were living longer until now."
However, it only works in those with a mutation of the BRAF gene called V600, present in about half of melanomas.
Tumours eventually became resistant to the drug, while side effects include photosensitivity, fatigue, and alopecia. A quarter of patients also develop secondary skin cancers, which have to be removed surgically.
The drug, marketed as Zelboraf by makers Roche, was recommended for approval last month by the European Medicines Agency.
It has yet to be examined for clinical and cost effectiveness by the National Institite for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).
Every year, some 11,700 people are diagnosed with malignant melanoma in Britain.
Of those who do not have them removed before the cancer spreads to other parts of the body, only about a quarter survive longer than a year. The disease claims 2,000 lives a year in the UK.
More than half of those on Zelboraf / vemurafeni?b in the study (58 per cent) lived longer than 12 months.
- Stephen Adams
